[OPIRG-EVENTS] rally against US war in Philippines - Tues. Jan. 29 @ 4:30 pm

[Len Bush <lbush@nupge.ca>]

Please distribute widely


Protest the US War in the Philippines


Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo will be in Ottawa on Tuesday
January 29th.  A rally to protest her governments inviting the US war
machine into the Philippines is being held outside the hotel where she will
be speaking. 

Tuesday January 29
4:30 - 5:30 pm 
Crowne Plaza hotel - corner of Lyon and Albert St.


From Press release about rally


Filipino-Canadians Protest the Coming of Philippine President Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo to Canada

While American military troops pour into the Philippines, overseas Filipino
workers, women, and youth across Canada are appalled to hear about the
upcoming visit of Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to Canada at
the end of January.

Since earlier this week, over 600 American combat troops have been streaming
into the southern part of the Philippines under the guise of helping the
Philippine military quell the small group of Muslim terrorists of the Abu
Sayaf.  The small terrorist group, created by the US Central Intelligence
Agency and set loose, has ran amuck in the southern Philippine islands
carrying out kidnappings for ransom, victimizing civilians and foreign
tourists.

Justifying its latest targeting of the Philippines with the pretext of
advancing its "international war on terrorism", the US government has found
this small group of bandits to be an ample excuse for the massive re-entry
of the US military on Philippine soil.  However, for the Filipino people,
this foreign military intervention into a domestic affair is a direct
challenge to the national sovereignty of the Philippines and its territorial
integrity.

Yet, instead of questioning and standing against the US government's foreign
intervention on sovereign Philippine soil, President Macapagal-Arroyo has
welcomed and facilitated this easy entry of a foreign military into the
battle zone in Southern Philippines.  The President's acceptance of the US
military to participate in combat even tramples on the Philippine
government's own constitution that forbids the entry of foreign troops.

For the Philippine people, her compliance to this foreign intervention
leaves no doubt of where President Macapagal-Arroyo's true allegiance lies.
Since she was slated into the presidency after the people valiantly ousted
former President Estrada, Macapagal-Arroyo has quickly showed her true
stripes by continuing the anti-people economic and political policies of
former regimes, persisting in the practice of flagrant corruption and
subservience to US imperialism.

For overseas Filipinos, Macapagal-Arroyo's economic policies that pursue the
continued export of highly-skilled Filipino workers to industrialized
countries have caused greater hardships on overseas Filipino workers.  In
Canada, our community has experienced greater exploitation and oppression
because of our worsening economic crisis that the current President is
plunging the Philippines into.  With the worsening economic crisis in the
Philippine pushing thousands more Filipinos to migrate to Canada, Filipinos
in Canada are finding that their community is in greater desperation to work
and slave as cheap labourers to help support the survival of their families.

The latest act of compliance to the wishes of the US government clearly
exposes President Macapagal-Arroyo's bankruptcy in her ability to bring
genuine economic development, political stability, and peace to the
Philippines.

Already, patriotic and progressive organizations in the Philippines are
holding President Macapagal-Arroyo accountable for her sell-out of the
Filipino people.  Rumblings for her removal from office are growing in the
parliament of the streets as the anti-US interventionist movement gains
ground among the Filipino people.

For Filipinos in Canada, who also took part in the Oust Estrada movement in
2000, there is a strong resolve to defend the Filipino people's hard-won
victory in ousting a corrupt and criminal president by not allowing
President Macapagal-Arroyo to continue to drive the Philippines into further
turmoil with US military intervention.

The Filipino community in Canada is calling on all peace and freedom-loving
Filipinos and Canadians to denounce the US military intervention in the
Philippines, and to criticize President Macapagal-Arroyo's compliance to US
military interests.  The community is prepared to show their strong
opposition to President Macapagal-Arroyo's anti-people agenda and condemn
the US war of intervention in their homeland when the President arrives in
Canada for her visit to Toronto and Ottawa.

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